Once the small trees arrived I knew there was no turning back for me or the 1,000 trees. Most of the local experts said it was too hot to grow maples or it would be impossible to sell them. I loved growing things and knew they could be kept healthy with shade and water. I believed Japanese maples were so beautiful they would sell themselves. Also in my first year Dr. John Pair, a renown research horticulturist from Kansas State University and a member with me in the Ozark Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, suggested growing Acer truncatum, commonly called Shantung maple. I took his advise and promptly ordered 200 small Shantungs.

So that first spring as a maple grower I had 1,200 maples and then covered them all with plastic for protection when a late freeze was forecast. In other years I had trouble with suppliers sending bad plants or suppliers who never sent any plants. I had trouble with the Texas Agriculture Department when they lost a previous year’s inspection report and prevented me from selling my first ever big crop until they had leaves and could be inspected again. A couple of times I was treated poorly by local nurseries when trying to sell my maples. They didn’t believe I had thousand of maples growing outside Fort Worth. Once a small town Kennedale cop pulled me over thinking the dozens of maples in my back seat was marijuana. I convinced him they were maples only after showing him my business cards and catalogs. Seeds can be a problem too. One year only 30 grew from 4,000 seeds. Another year squirrels ruined thousands of dollars worth of trees. And of course the weather was sometimes a problem, such as: the sudden drop in early December from the nineties to eighteen, the seven straight days and nights of hot winds in May, the 70 mph winds with several inches of hail, and the heat which bakes the surface of my sand up to 140 degrees.

There was always work to do. I devoted most of the first 2 years to clearing my 6 acres. It was the most heavily Smilax briar infested land in the world. There was briar every 3 inches that had grown to the top of my oaks. I estimate I cut and hauled to a compost pile over 300 miles of the nasty stuff. I wore long sleeves in summer but always went home scratched and bleeding. Many times I cussed the Devil, for he must have been responsible for this evil vine. There was always propagating or repotting, more irrigation parts to install, tags to print, bookkeeping, and weeds to pull. Many summer days I would hand water over 2,000 trees and once even reached 2,900 trees. One thing I had to learn was grafting. I studied some books, used some personal knowledge on how things grew, got some pointers from Carl Munn, an Oregon maple farmer, and self-taught myself the rest. Fortunately I was good at grafting. My success rate has always been over 90 percent, (The Texas heat in my greenhouse is my secret). I also rooted anything I could sell, like crape myrtles, and thousands of rare azaleas, but stopped growing everything except maples when I ran out of time and water. My neighbor, Jim Tripp, was a big help. He was proud of me working so hard and building up the business and would come over every day to check on me. He loaned me his tools and experience whenever I needed it. I built the place with a wheelbarrow, pruners and 2 shovels of my own but without his knowledge and power tools everything would have taken much longer. I was also teaching clarinet lessons in the afternoons and evenings to help pay for the land, (that is how we started closing at 2 pm, so I could go home to teach). Even though I taught just 10 students in Arlington while other teachers had up to 70, mine took 6 out of a possible 8 first chairs during 2001-2004. February of 2007 was particularly busy when I fought off a natural gas pipeline for my land, and co-chaired the national Rhododendron convention, and learned to write a website when my hosting service went out of business.

By 1999 the Japanese maples were selling well (mainly the common Bloodgood, Coral Bark, and Crimson Queens) but the Shantung maples were hard to sell. They seemed like nice trees to me, beautiful new growth and fall colors, and very heat tolerant, but Texans hadn’t heard of them and they feared they would fall apart like the silver maples in the region. In 2000 I got my first big break when Texas A&M University put Shantung maple on its ‘Texas Superstar’ program and sales exploded because I was the only one growing them.

The year 2000 was endlessly hot and dry. I went 110 days without a trace of precipitation. Another impressive record was the 113 degrees on September 11. By August many of the post oaks had shed all their leaves. I saw impressively large sumacs die in my dry sand. Even a native yucca died. Most of my Japanese maples were fine, except some got sun-scald in their hot plastic pots. Earlier that year I planted a Shantung in the ground as a test plant. Even though it was at the top of a very sandy hill and never watered, it never wilted or burned. I was really impressed.

Three big things changed in 2001. First I knew I had discovered a Shantung maple with brilliant red fall colors and a better leaf shape, instead of the usual yellow fall colors. Second, Maggie McNeely wanted to write a newspaper story on my maple farm and plant collections and convinced me to open to the public. It was the first of many big newspaper articles which turned the farm into a popular retail nursery and made maples known in the area. And third, my water wells began to dry up.

My little Shantung maple discovery was again a brilliant red in the fall of 2001 and superior to the most famous Japanese maple, ‘Bloodgood’ (See below). I had to start propagating this little tree and made 3 grafts. In 2002 I was able to find 58 pieces of wood to graft and also reported my first annual profit. The next year I was able to find and graft 335 trees, and also rooted 103 cuttings in June. In 2004 I was able to find enough wood to graft 1020 trees and hired an attorney to assist in filing a U.S. patent and trademark on my tree I named, ‘Fire Dragon’^® Shantung. By the end of 2005 from that one small tree I now had 2,520. In September of 2006 I was awarded plant patent #17367, the first Shantung cultivar, and sales were phenomenal. People always ask how I found ‘Fire Dragon’^®. “It’s simple“, I say, “when you have help from above and have grown thousands of seeds to find it“.

Changing to mostly retail salehas been very rewarding but it hasn’t changed the farm much and still is only about trees. I felt the various garden center items, like fertilizers, would only distract me and my customers. I did bs uild a display garden in 2002 so that people could see what mature trees looks like. I could point to a display maple and tell them how long it would take to grow one to that size. All of my customers have been extremely nice and I got to know many of them. Pricing was hard until I learned to price the trees where I didn’t care if they sold, or not. If they didn’t sell I was just as happy to keep it and just watch it get bigger and better. The large Saturday crowds meant I needed Saturday help and former customers like Roy Gallegos and Cecil Briley have helped tremendously with sales and other tasks over the years. Roy once spent a week of his vacation and helped install 3,000 spitters and Cecil would watch the farm when I was out of town. In 2007 Scott Hubble became the first full-time employee and also shares my love of growing maples and is a valuable addition to Metro Maples.

         
            Scott                     Carl Munn and Grandson                    Roy

The lack of water has been a big problem since 2003. Every guidebook to container growing says I need a minimum of 20,000 gal/day and they’re not even talking about growing maples in the Texas heat. I was getting about 3,000 gal/day. I drilled a 750 foot deep well but it has too much sodium and bicarbonates, and I can’t even purchase water as the quality is even worse. It is very satisfying to have kept nearly everything alive through the many extreme droughts of the last decade. Without lots of water I sometimes thought about growing other things, but decided it was going to be maples, or nothing. The feeling of having 18,000 maples in containers when it is over 100 degrees and not having ample water can be frustrating. But I knew my plants well, they are all like children to me, and knew they could endure with just a little help. Many times I gave them a drink and told them, “That’s all I got, pray for rain”. By 2009 every nursery was now selling maples, so I thought about buying more land and expanding, but decided to keep Metro Maples small and manageable. Early 2010 Albert Dennis was able to drill me a new water well, the first successful well after 4 dry holes. He also was able to get my old well producing good again after years of unsuccessful acid cleaning attempts. But despite water and weather problems, if I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing again.

So that’s the summary of the first fifteen year of Metro Maples. Its been exhilarating at times and frustrating too, but never a dull moment. I kept expenses low and put in a lot of hours. In 2005 I potted up 15,000 trees and azaleas, which includes the 5,000 grafts I did that year. While that seems impossible, it’s only about 40 trees per day. That is how I did it. A little at a time and never stopping. Early the next year I called Carl Munn, who started his maple farm about the same time, and told him that I worked 360 days last year, he said, “Keith, you’re slacking.”

The next fifteen years for Metro Maples looks exciting with several Shantung maples that might become successful new cultivars. In 2008 Scott and I propagated our first ‘Dwarf Golden Dragon’, (see below), a recent Shantung discovery with orange new growth that retains a bright yellow color all year and does not burn. Currently, we have for the first time, several thousand seeds from ‘Fire Dragon’^®, so perhaps one of them will sprout into a great new tree. Someday I would like to get on a popular TV talk show and ask what they like to grow? I know they could name many famous people, but could they name many plants or bugs? Nature is full of diversity, and always changing, and always a source of amazement and beauty. Gardening is a huge enjoyment for millions of Americans and getting more popular every year. I would like to tell them my motto, “Walking through my garden, no king ever had it better.” - END.